


Into Eternity

by PhantomPhan16, VicenteValtieri



Series: Role Playing Fanfiction [15]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Hanky-warning, M/M, Prison, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 00:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13493001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomPhan16/pseuds/PhantomPhan16, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VicenteValtieri/pseuds/VicenteValtieri
Summary: Thrawn lives out his last days in a New Republic prison, his memory failing and regrets brewing in his mind.





	Into Eternity

Thrawn woke and didn't know where he was. For a long time, he stared at the ceiling and didn't recognize it. Shifting to his feet, he looked around at an entirely austere room. It was a prison: A solitary cell with a refresher door and a barred window. He had been woken by natural sunlight. He felt a little sick. Where...? The last thing he remembered was going to berth on the Chimeara.

He rose slowly, every joint aching, and shuffled into the refresher. The face in the little mirror startled him.

He hadn't had grey hair when he went to berth. Nor had he had those lines beneath his eyes and around his mouth. The sudden realization dropped over him and he remembered suddenly. Of course, they had lost. The Chimeara had gone down and the Republic had rounded up escape pods as fast as the Empire tried to.  
He had not been among the lucky ones, and the Republic had locked him away in this prison. Years had passed. How many he no longer cared to think. He didn't know who had escaped, who was still in prison, and who may have been executed. He was alone save for the drones who came to tend him as they did all prisoners and the hostile guards who ran this place with iron fists.

He rolled the sleeves of his jacket back to his wrists with trembling hands. That had started about... ten years ago, if he remembered correctly - he probably didn't. His memory had failed him more often than not of late. The sleeves of these jackets could be buckled together behind his back. It was uncomfortable, humiliating, and his guards enjoyed doing it before he was supposed to have a meal, then watched him struggle to get out of them. He had figured out a trick, but if he managed it too quickly, they'd only kick him, or his meal tray over. Humiliating, and not at all how he would allow a prisoner to be treated on the Chimeara.

He used to wonder if the leaders of the Republic, for all their claims of humane treatment of prisoners, knew about this... or if they cared. Now he only hoped any friends and men who survived him were not subject to this treatment. He thought of one in particular. Gilad. His faithful second and friend. He hoped, prayed, Gilad had not fallen into the hands of the Republic.

A slot in the door opened and a drone rolled through with his breakfast tray on its back. Flavorless mush, nothing to write home about, but it would keep him alive.

He ate almost mechanically now, like he was on autopilot. He gazed out the window, his failing mind drifting to better times. To his men, his friends. A hacking cough seized him.

"That sounds terrible, Admiral." Agent Carnelian bounced her camera from hand to hand. "Think about going to medbay."

"It's nothing," he muttered, gazing down at the bright light of his datapad. No. This... this felt... wrong... why? He wanted it to be this way. He wanted this dream to be real and reality to simply to be a passing nightmare. He wanted to see her again, to see Gilad. He wanted to say all the things he never had.

"You okay to give your speech? It's kind of a big thing. Want some tea?" She chattered as she bounced along beside him.

"Please, and send Gilad to my quarters." "Finally going to tell him?" she chirped knowingly. She had known. How she had known he never quite figured out.

"Yes." He smiled decisively, then tripped on a chair that shouldn't have been there and toppled into the bolted berth, the fantasy shattered.

He both burned and froze a fever assaulted his weakened body. The thin prison blanket offered no relief from the bone-deep chills. He only just registered some commotion outside his cell. "Open this door!" barked a military voice, familiar but old.

"Well, where have we heard that voice before?" Carnelian hadn't shattered with the fantasy. She was still bouncing her camera.  
Thrawn turned his head, eyes straining to focus as the door was suddenly kicked hard enough to swing it nearly off his hinges.

The Wookie that was always with the Solos growled, and in stepped a much older Gilad Pellaeon. "Thrawn," he breathed in shock and sadness at the state of his commander and friend.

"Heh. Finally getting your chance and you're both too old to do anything fun. I call that irony." And Carnelian finally faded away as Gilad gathered Thrawn into his arms.

"Gilad?" he rasped, lifted a trembling hand to touch the man's cheek. "Shh. I'm here now. I'm taking you out of here. It's all right, Thrawn."

"I meant to tell you... I always..." He broke off into a hacking cough. Red drops spattered the grey cloth.

"Easy. Tell me on the way out." Thrawn was lifted onto a medical bed, gripping Gilad's hand. "You... got old." His former second managed a smile. "Yeah, I did. Time will do that."

"Carnelian...?"  
"Dead. She went down with the ship."

His last memory of her had been throwing him into an escape pod and launching it before he could protest that the crew wasn't yet off.

"Gilad-" "Shh. She saved so many of us." "I... I always..." "Slowly, Thrawn. Don't push yourself to tell me."

But it was now or never. White was encroaching on his vision. "...I love you."

Tears came to Gilad's eyes, as did understanding. He didn't speak, but instead gently kissed the Chiss.

Thrawn closed his eyes at last, feeling Gilad's kiss on his lips as he fell onto something soft and just floated for a very long time.

He could hear and sense others beyond. Others he knew, yet something kept him there. It was like he was waiting. Waiting for someone. He wasn't sure how long before he understood that he WAS waiting for someone. He waited for Gilad. He was content to wait for the one he had loved so they could join friends and family together. He would wait and wait where it no longer hurt or was too hot or too cold. He would wait.

He wasn't alone. A bouncing, over-eager presence was just inside the gate, waiting. He could almost see the flash of a lens in the sunlight. So many things to photograph, so much to explore. She was waiting for them - for the ones she had seen as her family.  
And suddenly Gilad was there. With him. And he was warm and young and real.

A long, true kiss, a kiss he almost wished would never end, but they had people to greet. Carnelian and Thrass were there first, and beyond them were family and friends they had lost over the years. Eternity was bright.

Gilad took his hand and Carnelian led the way, over the hill and towards the mountains. Together, they ran into the sunlight, nothing to bar their way.


End file.
